Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/60

48 If, after all, this man were an Antichrist, a deluder of souls, a fanatic who but fancied Himself the Son of God; a semi-illuminated prophet who understood the Truth, who knew the worth of righteousness but who had no power from above? Then again, if this doubting were but a temptation of the Evil One? Or again, what if God were trying and wringing the heart of Christ, as when He had allowed Him to be tempted by the devil on the Mount? What if Christ's prayers to His Father were unanswered? What if He too were enveloped in gloom and loneliness? Oh, what a mystery was life and death! And into the core of Martha's soul there crept once more the question, Why had this world been created? Why had each creature been born into a world of mystery and darkness? But, all the time, the two Marys clasped the hands of Lazarus, as if by pressing they could instil their courage into his deadening veins. What if, at the last moment, he were wrested from them eternally by a flickering out of faith?

No, to the end, be the future what it might, if the sisters were to live on to face disillusion and a crushing out of all their hopes till the fatal knock of death should be heard against the window, the flame of faith must be kept alive.

The silent chamber, dimly lighted by the Roman lamp, such as had now become the fashion in Judæa, grew even stiller and more gloomy, the three women's figures more immobile, the expectant eyes of Lazarus more dim; his breath came and went more painfully, and his body seemed torn by a spirit that was struggling to escape. Only the faint sound of